Narendra Modi Asks The BJP Maharashtra Cell To Get 48 Lakh Social Media Ids. But How Rational Is It?

By Prasant Naidu | Small Business

Name one Indian politician who gets social media? On an average you would have a consensus on The Gujarat CM and the BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi. It is a fact that when the present UPA government was deliberating on whether to regulate social media or create an open dialogue, Narendra Modi and his team has been strengthening their social media presence. All this eventually leads to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections and for sure the BJP party has been holding the baton at least in the social media arena.

Narendra Modi Facebook

In a latest move, Narendra Modi – who was visiting Maharashtra unit of the party after becoming the party’s campaign chief – has set his expectation quite clear. According to Firstpost, he has asked his BJP Maharashtra cell to get him social media addresses of 1 lakh people from each of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

The visit to the state was to lay down the ‘Mission 2014’ election plan and strengthen relations with its ally Shiv Sena. In addition to the agenda of getting 1 lakh social media ids, the agenda consisted of rejuvenating the party organization, strengthening the block-level party network, reaching out to voters through a comprehensive plan and weeding factionalism. Besides this, the emphasis has been stressed to attract youth towards the party for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

But how rational is the statement of getting 48 lakh social media ids

If we look at the figures then obviously it is a vague one and one can go on pointing lots of loop holes in it. For example the first question would be what does social media ids mean? Is it Facebook profile pages or the Twitter pages? Some may have not listed Maharashtra as their state so in that case what happens to them; the 48 lakh ids can be more or less and if you go by numbers then the statement is quite vague.

But with this agenda Narendra Modi has set the equation straight with the BJP Maharashtra cell leaders. Get down to work, know the people from your constituency and also find out what are the social networks that they are spending time on. This will only create the air of seriousness among the party people when it comes from the top guy.

It is true that social media is yet to have a greater reach than TV, but Narendra Modi or Namo is well aware that today’s youth is the biggest chunk of the population and they are spending time on social media. So by making his party workers serious about social media Namo has made it clear that he intends to adopt technology and connect with people via social media.

Your social media skills are best tested when you have a crisis at hand. So it would be interesting to see if Namo walks the same path of regulating social media if BJP comes in power after 2014. But till then he is surely making a dent on social media and most likely to get more than 48 lakh social media ids from Maharashtra.